Things are going so well for the Tennessee Titans that NASA should have Jeff Fisher’s crew look for that Mars Polar Lander.

After two spectacular playoff weeks, the Titans get the chance to tempt fate one more time Sunday when they try to beat the Jaguars for the third time this season in the AFC Championship Game in Jacksonville. Not only that, but the Titans will be looking for their third win in Jacksonville in the last two seasons, having won the last two times there. That’s a lot of threes to roll, especially when you consider the Jags haven’t lost to any other teams this season and are coming off a perfect 62-7 playoff performance against the Dolphins.

The Titans, though, also are only one of three teams to beat the Rams this year, so they have that Magic Mo going strong. They’ve believed in themselves all along. They call their show the “Freak Train” and it’s in high gear. Will the third meeting be a charm or will the luck finally run out?

“I like our chances,” said 17-year veteran guard Bruce Matthews, talking in that no-nonsense style that makes offensive linemen the conscience of the game. “We know it’s going to take a monumental effort to beat them three times in a season and twice at their place. Since they played the perfect game against Miami, they are going to have confidence coming in, but that seed of doubt has been planted in their minds. On one hand, we know it’s going to be hard to win three straight. But on the other hand they’re wondering [if] they can beat us.”

The Titans are made up of players who have overcome the odds. Start with the hero of their miracle Home Run Throwback touchdown in the win over Buffalo. Tight end Frank Wycheck has become a star despite the fact he was waived by the Redskins in 1995. This blow came after his college team, Maryland, eliminated his position, tight end, when the Terps went to a run-and-shoot offense, forcing Wycheck to leave college early. Now he’s in the AFC Championship Game.

Then there’s Jeff Fisher. In a profession dominated by heavy-handed head coaches, nice guy Fisher is a refreshing change. He’s only been a head coach since 1994 and he looks more like the guy next door than an NFL coach, one of only four left standing. A lot of geniuses are home right now, studying game films of what went wrong. Fisher, a defensive back with those salty Bears of the mid-’80s, learned much from Buddy Ryan; most of all he learned not to be an egomaniac. And he is a master at subtle motivation, pulling Eddie George aside before the Titans’ 19-16 victory over the Colts Sunday at the RCA Dome and telling George that this game was the reason they drafted him.

George then rumbled for 162 yards, including the 68-yard game-turning TD in the first series of the third quarter after Fisher made several key changes at the half. Fisher also is getting all the motivational mileage he can out of good old Home Run Throwback.

“I told our players the magnitude of that play depends on how many more game we win,” Fisher said. “So far, the play is getting bigger.”

And bigger and bigger and bigger. “Our game,” he noted, “is not pretty.”

It doesn’t have to be. This is football, not ballet.

Matthews, who is so old he played with Fisher at USC, knows the inner strength of this team. “There’s really been a core group of guys who have endured all the stuff that team has gone through,” Matthews explained of the nomad franchise that was 8-8 each of the last three seasons, playing in a different home each of the last four years. “Even though we were 8-8, we were learning a lot through those experiences. There’s a certain mental toughness with this team just by virtue of the stuff we’ve had to go through. We don’t do it pretty, but we find a way to get it done … I relish the opportunity.”

Defensive tackle Joe Salave’a echoed Matthews’ comments and voiced a thought that was a common thread throughout the Titan locker room.

“We were the only ones who believed, the only ones not surprised by this,” he said.